Breathing Exercises: Which One Helps When, and What the Research Says

Updated November 2026

Breathing exercises are one of the few things for tension that cost nothing and work anywhere. At the office, before a difficult conversation, at three in the morning. Nobody can see you doing them.

I like working with breathing exercises, partly because I know from my own experience how well they can work. Once you have done an exercise a few times, the effect sets in faster, because your body has practised it. And they are more than a quick fix for tense moments. They are also a good way to start the day or wind down before bed, ideally as a fixed routine.

This article covers eight exercises, sorted not by name but by the situation you need them in. After that comes what the research actually shows. It is less than many guides promise, and still enough to make them worth trying.

Which breathing exercise fits when?

Situation	Exercise	Time
Tense right now	Double inhale, long exhale	1 to 2 minutes
Tense right now	Long exhale	2 to 3 minutes
Before a meeting	Box breathing	2 to 4 minutes
Before a meeting	Delaying the inhale	2 to 3 minutes
In the evening	4-7-8 breathing	4 breaths
In the evening	Belly breathing	5 minutes
Daily	Coherent breathing	5 to 10 minutes
Daily	Breath awareness with a calm word	5 to 10 minutes

Many of my clients alternate between two exercises. That is plenty. Pick one for the acute moment and one for regular practice.

Why breathing changes anything at all

Under stress the body breathes faster and more shallowly, and the emphasis shifts to the inhale. The psychologist Gert Kaluza describes this as part of the normal alarm response. Heart and muscles get supplied, and the body gets ready.

What makes breathing special is that it runs on its own, yet you can steer it at any moment. You cannot lower your pulse or blood pressure by deciding to. Your breathing you can. Slow it down and there are measurable effects. A review of 223 studies shows that slow breathing raises heart rate variability, a measure of how strongly the vagus nerve, and with it the calming branch of the nervous system, acts on the heart.

One point gets overstated. That a long exhale works better than an equal one is plausible but unsettled. The studies so far disagree. Pace seems to matter most. So use the ratio that feels comfortable.

Breathing exercises for acute tension

1. Double inhale, long exhale

Researchers call this cyclic sighing, also known as the physiological sigh.

1. Breathe in through your nose.
2. Without breathing out, take a second short sip of air until your lungs are full.
3. Breathe out slowly through your mouth until the air is gone.
4. Repeat for one to two minutes.

2. Long exhale

1. Sit or lie down comfortably.
2. Breathe in through your nose, counting to four.
3. Breathe out calmly, counting to six.
4. Pause briefly after the exhale before the next breath comes.

If that is too long, count three and five. The number is not the point.

Breathing exercises before a meeting

Before a presentation or a difficult conversation you want a clear head. You want to be alert, not sleepy.

3. Box breathing

Four equal phases, hence the name.

1. Breathe in, counting to four.
2. Hold, counting to four.
3. Breathe out, counting to four.
4. Stay empty, counting to four.

Counting ties up your attention. It is hard to count and ruminate at the same time.

4. Delaying the inhale

1. Breathe out calmly.
2. Breathe in very slowly, counting to three or four. Let the air flow, do not pull.
3. Pause for about two counts.
4. Breathe out evenly, again counting to three or four.

Breathing exercises for the evening

5. 4-7-8 breathing

1. Breathe out through your mouth.
2. Breathe in through your nose, counting to four.
3. Hold, counting to seven.
4. Breathe out through your mouth, counting to eight.
5. Four rounds are enough to start.

Count as fast as feels comfortable. The long pauses take getting used to. If you feel queasy, stop. The evidence is thin: in a study of 43 young adults, pulse and systolic blood pressure fell right after the exercise. That says nothing about whether it helps you fall asleep, as is often claimed.

6. Belly breathing

1. Lie down with one hand on your belly and one on your chest.
2. Breathe in through your nose so that mainly the hand on your belly rises.
3. Let the air flow out by itself.
4. Stay with it for about five minutes.

Do not force anything. Your belly moves because the diaphragm is working, not because you are inflating it.

Breathing exercises for regular practice

7. Coherent breathing

Breathe in for about five and a half seconds and out for five and a half, which makes roughly five and a half breaths a minute. Five to ten minutes at a time. A breathing app or a metronome helps with the pace. Normal breathing is clearly faster, so this feels unusually slow at first.

8. Breath awareness with a calm word

This exercise does not change your breathing. You sit and watch it come and go. On each exhale you say a word to yourself, such as “calm”. Your mind will wander. When you notice, come back to the breath without getting annoyed. The idea of the calm word comes from Kaluza’s short exercises. If you want to practise for longer, the body scan is the next step, and the article on presence gives the background.

What the research on breathing exercises shows

The good news first. A 2023 meta-analysis pooled 12 controlled trials with 785 adults: people who practise breathing exercises report less stress. The effect is small to moderate. The authors explicitly warn against mistaking hype for evidence.

Then the sobering part. The same research group had 400 people practise for about ten minutes a day over four weeks. Half breathed coherently, the other half at a placebo pace of twelve breaths a minute. Both felt better afterwards, but the groups did not differ. The study ran online without live instruction, and the placebo may have worked in its own right, since both groups were breathing calmly and attentively.

A Stanford study compared four exercises in 108 participants, five minutes a day each. Mood improved in all groups. Only cyclic sighing clearly beat mindfulness meditation. Heart rate variability and resting heart rate did not change over the four weeks. The researchers themselves call the study exploratory.

What follows from this? The moment of attention may matter more than the technique. You interrupt what you are doing and look after yourself for two minutes. A lot points that way, though it is not proven. Hunting for the perfect number sequence is hardly worth it either way.

A word on fast methods with hyperventilation and long breath holds. In a comparison of 200 young, healthy adults, this style of breathing was no better than a placebo with slower breathing. For everyday stress I see no reason to start.

What breathing exercises cannot do

A breathing exercise lowers the tension of a moment. It changes nothing about what caused it. If you have been working too much for months, or are stuck in a dispute that never gets resolved, you will breathe more calmly and face the same situation. I have no time for treating overload as a breathing problem.

That is why breathing comes at the beginning of my work, not the end. It creates the pause in which a clear thought becomes possible again. What comes next is the real work: managing work-related stress, understanding how we recover from strain, or not saying the next sentence out of anger.

I use this myself before speeches and talks. I turn inwards for a moment and do a breathing exercise. Afterwards I am far more focused, clear and concentrated.

How to keep going

For relaxation training, Kaluza names three to four months of regular practice before it becomes available in difficult moments. If you only start in a crisis, the exercise will not be to hand. Knowing is not the same as doing, which is the subject of this article.

Attach the exercise to something that already happens. Two minutes before you open your laptop. While the coffee runs. In bed before the light goes out.

A small calendar often helps. After the exercise, add a dot or a short note. That makes the routine easier to build and keeps track of it.

When to be careful

If you feel dizzy or your hands and lips tingle, go back to normal breathing. Skip the breath holds if they feel unpleasant. If you have a respiratory or heart condition, are pregnant, or find that focusing on your breath makes you more anxious, talk to your doctor first.

Breathing exercises do not replace medical or psychotherapeutic treatment. If symptoms persist, have them checked. I offer counselling and coaching, not psychotherapy or diagnosis, and I say so openly when someone else is the right person to see.

Frequently asked questions

Which breathing exercise calms you fastest?

For the acute moment, the double inhale with a long exhale and the long exhale both work within one to three minutes. There is no proven winner. Use the one that comes easily.

How often should you do breathing exercises?

In the studies, participants practised five to ten minutes a day. Short sessions you actually do beat long ones you skip.

Do breathing exercises really work?

A meta-analysis finds small to moderate effects on stress. In one large comparison, however, an exercise did no better than placebo breathing. Pausing regularly seems to help. The specific technique probably matters less than claimed.

Are breathing exercises dangerous?

Calm, slow exercises are considered well tolerated by healthy people. Stop if you feel dizzy. If you have a medical condition or are pregnant, check with your doctor first.

Are breathing exercises therapy?

No. They can help lower everyday tension. They do not treat any illness.

Sources

• Fincham GW et al. (2023): Effect of breathwork on stress and mental health: a meta-analysis of randomised-controlled trials. Scientific Reports 13. Link
• Fincham GW, Strauss C, Cavanagh K (2023): Effect of coherent breathing on mental health and wellbeing: a randomised placebo-controlled trial. Scientific Reports 13, 22141. Link
• Fincham GW et al. (2024): Effects of brief remote high ventilation breathwork with retention on mental health and wellbeing. Scientific Reports 14. Link
• Balban MY et al. (2023): Brief structured respiration practices enhance mood and reduce physiological arousal. Cell Reports Medicine. Link
• Laborde S et al. (2022): Effects of voluntary slow breathing on heart rate and heart rate variability: a systematic review and a meta-analysis. Link
• Do Longer Exhalations Increase HRV During Slow-Paced Breathing? (2024). Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback. Link
• Effects of sleep deprivation and 4-7-8 breathing control on heart rate variability, blood pressure, blood glucose, and endothelial function in healthy young adults (2022). Link
• Kaluza G: Gelassen und sicher im Stress. Springer. Link

If the tension stays even though you breathe, it is worth looking at what is behind it. That is what I work on in life coaching, and for companies there is employee counselling.